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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24825103">decades-old letters to no one</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketpauling/pseuds/pocketpauling'>pocketpauling</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, but yeah this is a little. heavy. tommy sad moments, cws in the notes, messy messy writing but i wanted to get this out of my head, ok freelatta in chapter 2, seriously theres mentions of suicidal thoughts in here, some uhhhhh sadstuck, this has no plot its just stream of consciousness tommy hcs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:47:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,557</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24825103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketpauling/pseuds/pocketpauling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>tommy thoughts vis a vis bullying as a kid and like.. depression. read some ppl talkin abt bullying n stuff in the wrtv discord and it got me thinkin. this is a LOT of projection. im projecting. IM FINE NOW</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gordon/Tommy (HLVRAI)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>137</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>CWS: suicidal ideation, suicide planning, like... bullying of children. bad stuff. but nothing graphic, nothing actually bad happens ofc</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tommy had gone to many, many schools in his lifetime. He’d been in three separate elementary schools before he was even out of first grade – the full count was 17, before college. Even with all the school-hopping, it was never really his fault, never anything <em>he</em> did. Never did a thing wrong, never been to detention, not a problem child. He was a perfect kid, by all accounts, and his teachers loved having him. They did not, however, love having his father stop by.</p><p>Which, to be fair, he didn’t do <em>often</em>. It was rare, only when Tommy was sick or there was an ‘emergency,’ whatever reason he’d had to take Tommy home.</p><p>But he was unsettling. Everyone would be so kind to Tommy up until the first time they’d see his father, the first time they’d hear the unnatural, alien way he spoke. The way he moved, the way he walked. It was unsettling – and Tommy didn’t notice <em>any</em> of it.</p><p>Tommy lost friends nearly as quickly as he attempted to gain them, and it was something he just couldn’t understand. He didn’t know, no one told him that, at first, it wasn’t <em>him</em>, wasn’t <em>his </em>fault. A day would pass, and suddenly no one would sit with him at lunch, people would whisper about him behind his back. He was the freak who didn’t act right, every action he took was somehow <em>wrong</em>, even when other people did it too. His clothes were wrong, the food he ate was wrong, the way he spoke was <em>wrong</em>. It hurt more than anything.</p><p>So, he promised to stop caring. Wouldn’t do much more than introduce himself to people, keep to himself, stay quiet. As well as he <em>could</em> stay quiet – kids need friends, kids need people to play with and talk to. That need overrode whatever part of his brain told him to stay away from everyone else, the part of his brain that told him he’d just get hurt.</p><p>It never ended well, of course, but who could fault him for trying?</p><p>By middle school, he still hadn’t worked it out. Everywhere he went, kids went from friendly to downright malicious. He started hoping, praying for the day his father would tell him they had to move on. He didn’t get upset about it anymore. He never had friends to say goodbye to.</p><p>School was just something he was subjected to, now. Something that was in the way, a momentary bit of torture before he went home and slept for 12 hours straight every single night. He never told his dad when he stopped taking his medication, started stockpiling it for a reason he’d never admit, even to <em>himself</em>, but part of him just assumed his dad knew and did nothing to stop him.</p><p>In truth, it’d been years since the G-Man had been able to truly spy on his son, know what he was up to – not that he <em>wanted</em> to in the first place, mind you. Kids need some level of privacy. He <em>respected</em> that.</p><p>If he <em>had</em> known, there would have been a talk. A serious one, one about pills and taking too many of them, what that meant, what to do about it now that it was out in the open. Therapy, maybe. A psychiatrist, certainly. But it didn’t happen, so there was no need to talk.</p><p>In high school, Tommy was making plans. Not for the future, per se – he couldn’t see himself living past 18, anyway. The plans were wild ones, plans involving dogs and immortality and, and – the distance from the nearest outlet to the bathtub, how many ADHD pills can he take before he dies? Normal, everyday planning.</p><p>Because, now, kids didn’t even need to use the G-Man as an excuse to bully Tommy – Tommy was just weird enough for them to bully on their own.</p><p>Kids are cruel, and kids do not get any less cruel with age.</p><p>No more excuses. Fully a target, and people in high school were a lot more prone to doing things that genuinely hurt you. For, you know, <em>laughs</em>. People would ask him to be friends, for <em>laughs</em>. Throw things at him because it was <em>funny</em>. Fuck with him daily. For <em>fun.</em></p><p>There were people who gave him basic human kindness, of course. But those were people he never got close to, didn’t want them to realize how terrible he really was, didn’t need more enemies than was necessary. Not that the people who were harassing him were <em>enemies</em>, not really, they were more like – like, some word that he didn’t know yet, probably. There was some word in the English language that meant ‘a person who hates you but you think they’re mostly doing it to impress their friends,’ surely.</p><p>His father was only more distant, more wrapped up with work while all this was happening. They never spoke about it, not to each other. Not directly. Tommy got the idea that maybe his dad wasn’t even getting the full picture, didn’t understand it. Couldn’t understand why some random people were able to do something so harmful. And, ultimately, that was mostly the case.</p><p>It’s not like he even needed the bullying as an excuse. Sure, it was a pretty thing to put down on a note. A reason for it. People love a reason. People love having reasons for terrible things, terrible things that happen to boring and unlovable people. Reasons to say, God, why didn’t we notice? Why couldn’t we <em>see</em> what was <em>happening</em>? Why didn’t he <em>tell</em> us? But it’s not that simple, never as simple as a singular reason. It’d been something he’d been dealing with for a while.</p><p>Tommy never did it, though. Never so much as broke skin, but the urge was ever present in his mind, even into college. Even beyond it. Countless notes, some of which were just a sentence long, a sentence of ‘God, I’m so sorry, please make sure Sunkist goes to a good home.’ Stacked high in a folder on his desktop, in his notebooks from middle school, on the back of some random college syllabus from freshman year. He could write a killer book, probably, if he put them all together. Some poetry, if he cared for that kind of thing.</p><p>People weren’t so outwardly mean after high school, but it was still there. People weren’t meant to have yellow eyes, weren’t meant to be so childish, weren’t supposed to be so – like, hyper? Maybe? Adults were meant to act a certain way, anything else was wrong, he was <em>wrong</em> and, and… what had Mr. Freeman called him, just minutes after meeting him?</p><p>A freak. Yeah.</p><p>Even after Gordon warmed up to him, it stuck there in his head. Freak. Yeah, sure. That was practically his middle name. And that was fine. It was normal.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Gordon finds something.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CW: suicidal thoughts, mentions of overdosing, pills. its heavy, but nothing actually happens. it's planning and thoughts only</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gordon hadn’t meant to find the note – it’d be something he’d swear up and down over, that he had no way of knowing what was in the box. He hadn’t meant to drop it, spill its contents across the kitchen tile as he helped Tommy unpack, help him move into Gordon’s apartment.</p><p>That’d require some explaining if Gordon had to explain it to anyone, but he <em>doesn’t</em>, so it gets no explanation.</p><p>Tommy was out walking Sunkist, only because she absolutely <em>had</em> to run a few miles as soon as possible, pulling a very apologetic Tommy away from doing most of the work himself – but, hey, Gordon didn’t mind. Just kissed him at the door, told him he’d be fine, nothing to be sorry about. It’s just a few boxes, anyway.</p><p>But that first box, the very first one he picked up, he – well. It’s hard to carry heavy things with a prosthetic you haven’t quite gotten the hang of, and he’s willing to admit he’s definitely still in the throes of getting the hang of the damn thing.</p><p>So. The box was on the floor, papers and papers in every direction. He knew, just <em>knew</em> he’d be finding these papers underneath the fridge and the oven and the <em>dishwasher,</em> later.</p><p>It’s entirely by chance that the first paper he picks up is one filled with messy, frantic handwriting, the kind that draws you in, makes you curious. If it was easy to read, where’s the fun in that? Like the <em>billboard</em> in the breakroom back at Black Mesa. Where would the joke be if he didn’t have to focus to decipher it?</p><p>He leaves the mess there on the ground, instead electing to lean against the counter and get to work on the note – curiosity killed the headcrab, or something. Right?</p><p>
  <em>To whoever – </em>
</p><p>Gordon is ‘whoever,’ right?</p><p>
  <em>- finds this, I’m sorry, it’s not pretty, probably.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry you had to see that! Not fun. But it was necessary, I think.</em>
</p><p>Tommy leaves a lot of apology notes, leaves them on Gordon’s bedroom door, his fridge, his coffeemaker. Usually for leaving without saying goodbye, but he knows Tommy leaves them less for Gordon and more for himself – he always feels like he has to say sorry for something, always has to have a reason to say sorry to someone.</p><p>It used to be cute, but now? Now, Gordon knows ‘I’m sorry’ is another way of saying ‘I love you,’ but it’s not sweet the way Tommy’s usual ‘I love you’ is. It’s hard to get down, Gordon can taste the fear in the back of his throat. He’s tried to convince him, tells him there’s nothing to be sorry about, but nothing changes.</p><p>It’s not his business to ‘fix’ Tommy, but he wishes he could, wishes it were that easy. Wants Tommy to stop being so afraid he’ll leave him, because he <em>won’t</em>. Not on purpose, not willingly.</p><p>
  <em>You’re probably really curious as to why I did it! Well. Do you know how easy it is to overdose on Adderall?</em>
</p><p>Huh?</p><p>Tommy’s got a habit of going off on tangents, but it was usually about something he was really interested in. Was he – did Tommy used to have medication as a special interest?</p><p>
  <em>It’s so easy. It’s so easy, and they just give it to you. And keep giving it to you, every time you go to the counter, every month, they give you more of it, even if you haven’t been taking it. Because they don’t know! They don’t know what I’ve been doing. They don’t know how much I have.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You know now, though. If I did it right.</em>
</p><p>This joke isn’t funny anymore. The note isn’t <em>funny</em> anymore.</p><p>He has to sit down, somewhere, anywhere – the only option is the floor, and he struggles to sit down without just flat-out falling on his ass.</p><p>Tommy – when was this <em>from</em>? A year ago? A… a <em>week</em> ago? It was shoved in with old college syllabi, papers and class notes – it had to be old, but does that make it any better?</p><p>Gordon thinks about it, skims the next few lines, because it’s a morbid sort of curiosity now – and he feels awful about invading Tommy’s privacy like this, but he can’t stop reading now that he’s started. It’s like a fucking car crash.</p><p>
  <em>I hope I did it right. I don’t really like hospitals. If I’m not all the way dead right now, can you just come back later? Don’t bother anyone about it, it’s easier that way.</em>
</p><p>He’s never seen a terrible car crash, but he’s absolutely seen terrible things he can’t look away from before. The resonance cascade, and everything that came after. So many people died in front of him, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away then, either.</p><p>Tommy’s not <em>dead</em>, though. But he could have been.</p><p>And that thought? That’s worse than the resonance cascade, worse than losing a <em>hand</em>. Worse than facing Benry there, at the end. It’s a suffocating thought, the idea that he could have never had Tommy in the first place. Wraps around his throat, forces tears to his eyes.</p><p>
  <em>Tell my dad I’m sorry. I know he was so proud of me for ‘getting better,’ but I wasn’t really. It’s not his fault. He’s probably reading this now, actually, so, hey, dad? Not your fault. It’s fine. There’s nothing you could have done, so don’t worry. I’m sorry for being such a letdown. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Oh, and if you don’t want to keep Sunkist, make sure she goes to a good home? I know it might be hard to keep her. Please don’t be mad at her. I don’t know why you would be, but please. Make sure she’ll be okay.</em>
</p><p>It doesn’t even sound like Tommy, Gordon thinks. And then it’s so clear that it <em>does</em> – it sounds so much like Tommy, because it <em>is</em> Tommy. The… the caring about other people’s feelings too much thing. The thing he does <em>constantly</em>. It’s right here, in the worst possible context. Begging his dad to not blame himself.</p><p>How old could he had even been? Nineteen, twenty? The thought of Tommy being so young, so afraid, so alone, so sure he’s about to end it all, it’s – it’s not something Gordon wants to think about, but he can’t <em>stop</em> thinking about it.</p><p>
  <em>I hope it’s not too much trouble afterwards. I don’t need a fancy funeral, don’t need a special casket or anything. Just, cremation is fine? That’s fine. Or one of those natural burials, with just the burial shroud? I don’t want to ruin the environment after I’m gone. No embalming, and all that.</em>
</p><p>Gordon’s crying, biting his hand so hard it’s surely bleeding, trying his hardest not to sob out loud. But he’s laughing too, because of <em>course</em> Tommy would think of the environment while writing something like this. Of <em>course </em>he would. It’s such a Tommy thing to do, it just makes Gordon cry harder. He can’t read the rest of it – he can’t <em>see</em> well enough to, not anymore. He folds the note up again, sets it on the floor next to him, wipes his eyes.</p><p>The front door opens, and Tommy’s shouting after Sunkist, already tearing her way through the living room and in to where Gordon sits on the floor, licking the rest of the tears from his face, trying to worm her tongue up his nose.</p><p>Tommy pulls her away, makes eye contact with Gordon, runs his fingers through Gordon’s hair, gold eyes so confused, so sad. So lost, don’t understand, can’t understand. Was it the box? Baby, it’s fine. It’s okay, it’s just a box, how long have you been on the floor?</p><p>Gordon can’t find the words, can’t explain – he pulls Tommy down to him, he sits criss-cross in front of him. The note is passed over, and Tommy doesn’t recognize it at first, but when he does – when he <em>does, </em>God, it’s plastering this blank, distant look on his face. It hurts to look at. And then his hand is back in Gordon’s hair, the other on his shoulder, pulling him into a hug, any kind of contact, <em>anything</em> right now. Anything, please.</p><p>Tommy says he’s sorry, he’s so fucking sorry, he didn’t want Gordon to see that. Never, never.</p><p>Gordon tells him, again, and again, and again, as many times as it takes to convince him – there’s nothing to be sorry about.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hurhghhhghhghh im sorry tommy stans but i *projects fully, completely*</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yeah so im coping. im projecting how i was treated onto tommy. im NOT by ANY MEANS fishing for ppl to be like "omg are you ok now..." yes! i am ok now. im better, ive been to therapy, taking meds, you know how it is. life can just get tough sometimes and this was a lil thing i wrote to... idk, validate my experiences as being bad enough? you know how it is. sometimes we can tell ourselves the bullying we experienced and the depression we had to live with wasnt that bad. but if it hurt u then it WAS that bad. anyway thanks for reading</p></blockquote></div></div>
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